Yanked™ Recipes, A sprinkling of Yankee Genealogy, History of Food and Much More Yankee.

Monday, January 27, 2014

Behind A Crows Ear

I recently added
a recipe for my version of a southern classic, which is grits. This
was one of those ingredients that Southerner's are very protective of
and swear by their own way of enjoying this corn product. And because
of all the emails I received, it looks as though our protectiveness
of New England chowder is just as fierce as grits are down South.
Although I think my version is VERY tasty, I will not get into the
emails that weren't quite so 'delicious'. Rather, I will forward to
those of you who asked me the differences between grits and cornmeal,
their beginnings and the many spinoffs of both fresh and dried corn,
along with some history to boot.

There are many
stories and myths regarding how corn came to New England, with one
of them being retold more than others of a crow carrying a kernel of
corn from Mexico in or behind its' ear. Although great reading, of
course it is a fallacy. But having said that, every Food Historian of
any note(with a true understanding that not everything can be
known)will tell you it is unsure exactly how this happened. It is
known, however, that corn made its way north with a little help.
Understand that this grass is not something that grows on its own in
nature. Humans need to plant it. So it needs not be said that our
Native Americans, during the course of their travels north, brought
this maize from the highlands of Mexico to the equally high,
mountainous regions of the Eastern United States. Along the way,
however, the white gourdseed corn dominated. This softer-kerneled
corn took longer to grow and matured far later than the northern
Flint, which was perfect for the warmer climates where the extra time
was available for its full growth. This white corn is the beginning
of the Southerners grits.

Along with corn,
our native Americans revered squash(or pumpkin) and beans, making
this trio known as the "Three Sisters". Western Europe had
conception of the corn that had been growing on this soil. They
actually referred to almost all grains as corn until Christopher
Columbus introduced it. he proclaimed in his 1492 journal as "well
tasted, baked and dried and made into flour."

By the time
Europeans settled this land, the American Indians were growing a good
variety of corn, including Dent, Flint, Sweet and Popcorn, but not as
we know them today.

Dent corn, in
particular Sweet Dent Corn, was said to have been developed by James
Reid in the 19th century. While he may have cross pollinated Flint
with Floury corns to produce this field corn with the distinctive
'dent' in each kernel, it is the Native Americans who first grew Dent
corn. It was, and still is, the most popular form of corn to be dried
and ground for use in all things requiring cornmeal because of its'
very thick outer skin that truly doesn't soften when boiled. It is
said that this was the type of corn that Josselyn was speaking of in
his account of 1674 about the Native Americans using sacks to store,
and travel with, their "powdered cornmeal":

"which
they make use of when stormie weather or the like will not suffer
them to look out for their food".

Roger Williams,
of where else but Rhode Island continues in 1643:

"I have
travelled with neere 200. of them at once, neere 100. miles through
the woods, every man carrying a little Basket of this[cornmeal] at
his back, and sometimes in a hollow Leather Girdle about his middle,
sufficient for a man three or foure daies".

Flint corn(which
is often referred to as Indian corn, is of the same species of Indian
corn but has a lower water content and is very resistant to the
freezing temperatures found in Northern New England. In fact, it is
said that during the Year Without a Summer(1816) it was the ONLY crop
not to have been completely decimated by the frigid conditions in
Vermont. this episode is well worth reading about by the way because
it was felt world-wide, but most devastated was northern New England
where snow flee in June and freezing temperatures ruined crops
throughout the East coast of the U.S..

Early Indian
corn was one color per stalk, with all colors growing throughout New
England. The Native Americans kept the colors separated. Today,
because of cross pollination, we have multi-colored ears of Indian
corn. And to set the record straight, ALL corn today is actually
Indian corn because our Native Americans grew all types of corn,
including Dent and Flour.

Want to know
what the early corn looked like?

While today’s
corn has roughly 30 rows of kernels, early corn had between 8-12
rows, with the circumference of each ear being half of what we
propagate now.

Did you know
that the decorative multi-colored Indian corn is indeed edible? Yup!
As with any corn, it should be picked prematurely. That's right. We
pick our super sweet corn prematurely even today. That is why it is
sweet! Corn was meant to be aged past the sweet phase and into the
starch phase. As corn ripens, the sugar content turns to starch and,
thusly, becomes not only chewy but less sweet as well. Even though
Indian corn may not be very sweet when picked before the conversion
to starch, it does retain some sugar and completely edible.

No part of the
corn was wasted back then, nor is it today. The corn could be eaten
green, or dried for storage and grinding. Surplus(including the
stalks), cattle and poultry, with any remainder after that to be
distilled into alcohol. As with the other parts of the corn, dried
cobs were made into pipes, jug stoppers and tool handles while the
husks were great, dried, to start fires with and to fill mattresses.
The Native Americans even made a type of moccasin from the dried
leaves. The husks were also used by many of our fore-mothers, when
they were children, to make corn-husk dolls up until well into the
20th century. Bartering, as cash, for items needed in the home was
commonplace as well, even for furs and meat well into the 19th
century.

Today’s super
sweet corn has been genetically modified so that the conversion of
sugar to starch inside the endosperm of the corn kernel has been
slowed, thereby making it last longer from the field to the table. It
used to be that once you picked corn, the sweetness was declining to
the taste about 20 minutes after picking. Now, days can go buy
without a noticeable difference in taste.

Papoon,
the Iroquois name for what we now know as sweet corn, was first
introduced by the Indians to the European settlers here in New
England around 1780. CountryGentleman(a white kerneled
sweet corn) and Stowell's Evergreen are two varieties still
around that our forefathers enjoyed. It is also known that during
this same period, it is widely believed that Lt. Bagnal, a member of
Sullivan's Expedition again the Iroquois, brought sweet corn seeds
from the Susquahana Valley in New York to Massachusetts while Thomas
Jefferson also mentions growing "shriveled corn" in his
1810 Garden Book.

Now that we have
touched on the beginnings of all corn products, let's decipher
individual products that is the basis for many recipes we taste
today.(Finally, huh?)

Picture of Thomas Jefferson's garden, courtesy of vnews.com

Let's start with
grits. Literally meaning coarse meal, from the Old English grytt,
it originally meant any porridge made of wheat and other grains. More
commonly called groats in England because, as I mentioned earlier in
the article, all porridge consumed was made of grains such as wheat
and oats, but not the corn we know of today.

Grits come in
both yellow(the whole kernel) and the predominant white(hulled
kernels of corn). The corn used for grits? Southern Flint or white
gourdseed corn, as mentioned above.

Modern grits are
now generally made of hominy, which is result of corn having the hull
and germ removed through a process called nixtamalization.
Nixtamalization is simply the soaking and cooking of corn in an
alkaline solution of lye/lime and ash. I know how we all hate the
fact that everything we put in our body is so chemically altered in
some way now, and nixtamalization being another, but pallagra(a
niacin deficiency) is negated by this process.

Killing the
corn's germ also prevents the corn from sprouting while in storage,
as our ancestors found at least as far back as 2000 B.C, when the
Mexican population began slagging their corn in lye and ash.

If you have ever
read Laura Ingalls Wilder's book, Little House in the Big Woods,
you will find a passage on how hominy was made more than a century
ago(also telling the reader how to make the extremely popular New
England favorite, Maple Candy, which was boiling maple syrup "thrown"
on snow and always enjoyed with a sour pickle by the adults).

"The first day, Ma cleaned and brushed the ashes out of
the cookstove. Then she burned some clean bright hardwood, and saved
its ashes. She put the hardwood ashes in a little cloth bag. . . .

Early the next day Ma put the shelled corn and the bag of ashes
into the big iron kettle. She filled the kettle with water, and kept
it boiling a long time. At last the kernels of corn began to swell,
and they swelled and swelled until their skins split open and began
to peel off. . . .

With her hands she rubbed and scrubbed the corn until the hulls
came off and floated on top of the water. . . .She never splashed a
drop of water on her pretty dress.

When all the corn was done, Ma put the white kernels in a big
jar in the pantry. Then, at last, they had hulled corn and milk for
supper.

Hominy
hominy hominy!"

There have been
many myths and handed-down stories of grits in the South, with my
favorite being that grits make ones bowel move, but cornmeal doesn't.
That being said, grits are found in supermarkets everywhere, even up
here in New England where we find three types of grinds, fine, medium
and coarse. True Southerner’s will tell you that the only true
grits are the old-fashioned stone ground while others say steel-ground are the best. But I do believe there are
times when you will find even them purchasing quick grits. These are
very finely ground hominy that is pre-steamed for a 5-minute cook. I
find this a great alternative, although regular grits can be made in
about 10 minutes.

Now about the
taste! I have absolutely no problem telling you that grits is bland dish, just like I will exhort that cornmeal mush is just as bland tasting, that's why we add so many different types of flavorings. Even
Bill Neal and David Perry, authors of one of the best cookbooks about
this Southern staple entitled Good Old Grits Cookbook, say that grits
are bland. Suffice
it to say, almost everyone adds some type of flavoring, butter, salt
and pepper chief among them. That is also why, when you see selections
at restaurants or talk to families who grew up on grits, they will
tell you that "grits-and-gravy", "grits-and-ham"
and "grits-and-eggs" are the dishes most often
associated with this bland "cornmeal". I actually adore
grits with red-eye gravy(a reduction of pan juices from cooking ham,
adding coffee and pepper). But I also enjoy grits made with a New
England element in the way of Cheddar cheese, which is almost
consecration in the eyes of the ardent grits lover wayyyy down South, although more and more grits-lovers are coming around.

Not to be
outdone, us Northerners enjoy, and always have, our yellow cornmeal.
This is simply ground, dried corn which also comes in various grinds as does grits.
The finest is referred to, most often, as cornflour. Cornflour, by
the way, denotes cornstarch in England, as cornmeal is known as
polenta. (Don't make me explain)

We also have our
"hell-bent" cornmeal lovers here in New England. Some stick
with the steel ground yellow cornmeal, with the husk and germ of the
kernel removed. The purists here in the North say that stone-ground
cornmeal is the best. This cornmeal still retains some of the hull
and germ, thereby giving it slightly more flavor. It is interesting
to note that while grits have only one use, while yellow cornmeal has
many. As my children would say, "just sayin' ".

Not to be
outdone, the Mid-West also have cornmeal that is seldom seen, let
alone used, here in New England. Blue and Red Cornmeal. Yup, there is a
red corn. Although we generally see chefs with an affinity to
Southwestern cuisine(such as Bobby Flay) prepare many dishes using
blue cornmeal, red corn is just as flavorful. Blue corn, which contains
about 20 % more protein than either yellow or white corn, is commonly
used in tortilla chips while red is all but forgotten. Both have a
much more intense corn flavor than yellow or white cornmeal, but with that extra flavor, it loses
the sweetness of yellow corn. Both of these can be eaten in a raw or
boiled state, but I think the sight of either blue or red corn on the
cob has people thinking otherwise.

For many
centuries, us Yankees have enjoyed(well we enjoyed it 'way back when'
anyway) a dish called Cornmeal Mush. This was simply dried, ground
yellow corn that has been boiled in water. In Italy, this is called
Polenta. Why? My elemental theory is that if you see Cornmeal Mush on
a menu, you would not be willing to pay more than a buck for it, if
anything. While a menu that stated Polenta would easily herald oohs
and ahhs while commanding a price of $10-$12 easily. BUT THEY ARE
BOTH THE SAME THING!

When our
fore-"mothers" made this dish, it was usually a ratio of
four parts water to one part cornmeal, boiled for about 20 minutes
with butter or drippings added. During the 19th century, jam, maple
syrup, molasses, brown sugar, diced fruit and other seasonings were
added to make a more palatable breakfast.

Now what I have
not touched on in this article is the most famous dishes made with
yellow cornmeal, and those are Jonnycakes and Jonnybreads. Find this
"essay" under Johnny, Jonny or Journey? very soon both here on my blog or on my website, at
theyankeechef.com. Hope I didn't bore you with too much.

3 comments:

Excellent post. Any chance of you adding email subscriptions? I tried to subscribe with what you have & it did not work, despite my also being on Blogger.Regards, Keith.http;//woodsrunnersdiary.blogspot.com.au